The Success Secrets of A Legend: How Bob Marley Went From Struggling Musician To International Superstar

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Attention: Writers, Musicians, Bands, Filmmakers, Screenwriters, Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners. If You’re An Aspiring Music Artist Or Band, Or A Writer Hoping For A Book Deal, Or A Creative Artist Such As A Filmmaker, Screenwriter Or Entrepreneur Then I’d Like To Tell You About My New Book Called The Success Secrets Of A Legend, How Bob Marley Went From Struggling Jamaican Musician To International Superstar

If You’re An Aspiring Music Artist Or Band, Or A Writer Hoping For A Book Deal, Or A Creative Artist Such As A Filmmaker, Screenwriter Or Entrepreneur Then I’d Like To Tell You About My New Book Called The Success Secrets Of A Legend, How Bob Marley Went From Struggling Jamaican Musician To International Superstar

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"210 LIFE" is taken from Ephesians 2:10. And we chose "AWAKEN GENERATION" because there's a massive awakening happening in the hearts of this generation for the glory of God. And we want to be part of it.

Attention: Writers, Musicians, Bands, Filmmakers, Screenwriters, Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners. If You’re An Aspiring Music Artist Or Band, Or A Writer Hoping For A Book Deal, Or A Creative Artist Such As A Filmmaker, Screenwriter Or Entrepreneur Then I’d Like To Tell You About My New Book Called The Success Secrets Of A Legend, How Bob Marley Went From Struggling Jamaican Musician To International Superstar

The New Book By Hervict Jacobs

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Archive for December, 2013

I’m pretty sure by now you are sick of hearing about the Duck Dynasty controversy that erupted this past week after comments by the Ducky Dynasty patriach Phil Robertson came to light. Phil made some comments to GQ magazine saying that marriage should be between a man and wife and that the alternative lifestyle is a sin.

The praise and backlash has been swift and unrelenting as those who agree with Phil has come to his aid while others who disagree with his views have unleashed all kinds of vitriol.

As I’ve reflected over the hoopla the past few days I was struck by some of the things this entire controversy means for christians. Especially christians in the post modern age. And the biggest issue this uproar has brought to light for Christians in our time is this: what to do with the hard sayings of scripture.

The truth of the matter is that both Jesus and scripture has some hard sayings that we as Christians know is hard for the world to hear. And this puts us as conservative, bible-believing christians in a difficult position. Because we want to be loving, we don’t want to be judgmental or bigots or whatever else. But in our attempt to be all these things there are just certain teachings in scripture that no matter how we try to package or coat it, just will not be received well by those who have different views than the ones expressed in the sacred text.

Did we forget that this why Jesus was crucified by the jews of his day. Because he made statements that to them were just blatantly unacceptable. And therein lies the rub. And we see this issue in the life of Jesus, there’s the gracious side of Jesus that we see in his dealings with the woman at the well in John 4 and his dealings with Mary Magdalene etc. but then there are also his hated statements that “he and the father are one.” And that he has the power to forgive sins. These were the hard sayings of Christ that got him crucified.

And the challenge for us as Christians is the same one faced by Christ. In that we do want to be loving and gracious and all those good things, but also we have to stand by and affirm even the harder parts of scripture. And we should be very careful that in our attempts to make Christianity attractive and palatable to non-Christians we don’t also reject or avoid the hard sayings of scripture, because to me that would be not honest.

Any person with even just a basic knowledge of scripture cannot deny that scripture calls alternative lifestyles a sin. That’s a hard saying of scripture that we just cannot get away from no matter how gracious or loving we long to be.

And here’s where it gets difficult because it means that if we stand in unwavering obedience to the truths taught in scripture we as Christians will be hated. And no matter how patient and “seeker sensitive” and non-judgemental we want to be there’s just no way around that reality that we will be hated for remaining committed to the harder tenets taught in scripture. And unfortunately the only way to avoid this hate is by distancing ourselves and essentially reject the hard sayings of scripture to appease non-Christians. And there are many streams in Christianity who have already done that, who’ve already rejected the basic teachings on scripture in order to make christianity more appealing to non-Christians. But for true, bible-believing Christians that is just not an option. And unfortunately because of this we should not be afraid to be hated. Because that’s the price of holding firm to the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.

In regard to this tension of our time, Jesus’s words in John 15 vs 18-21 is as relevant and applicable as ever:

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.”

And while it may be hard to do this in our generation we can rest assured that there is a reward waiting for all those who have remained faithful.

Matthew 10: 32 reminds of this reward:

“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn

“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’

“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

There is this blog that I wrote a couple years ago making its way around the internet again the last few days. It’s a spicy little rant that I wrote on a plane as I was coming home from a long “Christian music” tour, and I was tired, cranky and sick of the copious loads of b.s. that I had continually encountered in the religious circles that I found myself in.

The blog was angry. It wasn’t all that articulate or even very well thought through, but it did call a spade and some people appreciated that. Of course, it made some people angry too. Some said that I was arrogant and cynical, and maybe I was.

I ended up deleting the blog because, as I thought about it and discussed the issue through the next year, I realized some things. I realized that the issues I was upset about don’t just exist in the tiny bubble that I was living in. They exist everywhere. The issues I saw were just a small piece of fruit on a much larger tree planted within a much larger orchard. I actually ended up writing an entire book about it called The Crowd, the Critic and the Muse.

So imagine my chagrin when my road manager told me a couple of days ago that people were texting him all day about that deleted blog that I wrote years ago…

Why is it that the CCM blog is by far my most “viral” blog ever? Is it because it’s more true or honest than other blogs I have written? I don’t think so.. Is it because the content was more informative than other blogs I have written? No. I think it is for the same reasons that football is more popular than the symphony.

Both a sports team and an orchestra are made up of highly skilled, highly trained, and highly rehearsed human beings working together for a common purpose. The great athlete and great musician have both put in countless hours of hard work and have achieved a level of mastery both mentally and physically of the ‘game’ that they are playing. But symphonies don’t pack out stadiums…

So why is it that 50,000 people show up to the football game but only 500 show up to the performance of the Rachmaninoff concerto?

I think it has something to do with the fundamental difference between the nature of the goals of a football team and the goals of an orchestra. An orchestra rehearses together to focus their talents into a single vision: the piece. They work together to build something beautiful and grand. A sports team also must learn to work together, but it is for the purpose of defeating the opposition. The entire purpose of a sporting event is competition. An orchestra is more like a construction team trying to build a beautiful piece of architecture together, while the sports team is more like an army trying to defeat an enemy.

When you’re team comes to my town, and my team crushes your team, I somehow feel powerful. I am on the right side of the battle. I am part of the winners and we are better than you. You don’t get that at the symphony. You don’t really walk away from listening to Bach feeling superior or powerful. If anything, it is a humbling experience. An experience of wonder and beauty, but not of conquest or tribal pride.

So, what does this have to do with my blog?

Well, what is it that made this particular blog get shared thousands of times and others get largely ignored?

In my opinion, the infamous CCM blog was not nearly as “beautiful” as other blogs that I actually spent time crafting and shaping. It was an unedited rant. Just guttural angst vomited onto a laptop keyboard. Sure, I think there was truth in it, but I honestly don’t think it was the truth that made it spread. It was the guts. The blood. The lines that could now be drawn in the sand. Us. Them. Those of us who feel justified in hating most mainstream Christian music. Or those of us who love Christian music and see how much of an ass this Gungor guy is. The battlefield was setup. Now, go, kill!

I made the mistake of perusing some of the comments that were left on the reposted blog yesterday. They get really mean. Name calling and below-the-belt personal attacks on both sides. Parental warning here. Some of the comments below are not suitable for young audiences.

“I’ve never called you creative. A copy, yes. Clone, maybe. Creative, no.”

“The real problem with the “Christian Music Industry” is that Michael Gungor is a part of it. Get a fucking life. Your are a joke just sitting around stirring up meaningless conversation. No one gives a shit about you or your opinions. Asshole.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“Michael, without a doubt, from this post, you sound like an ignorant, stuck up oaf, attempting to veil your attempts at basin someone who violates a pet peeve of yours…”

Where there is passionate blood shed, there is social media sharing.

My point here is that I think most human beings in our current mainstream level of consciousness are often drawn more to competition than cooperation, and the result of this is a world that gets divided up into camps of ‘us and them’, and the world is a worse place for it. The reason that I deleted the blog was not because I was afraid of calling out the b.s. in the Christian music industry, but because I think the way I wrote it was a bit too emotional and narrow.

I say it was narrow because like I have said, the problem does not lie solely within the Christian music industry. There are plenty of people and industries that wade behind the true innovators and pick up the crumbs to insert their messages into a previously alive creative medium. There are plenty of TV shows, Disney movies, boy bands and pop albums that are every bit as soulless and zombie-like as the most generic Christian songs on the radio. And there are songs that have been arguably been created within the somewhat imaginary “Christian music industry” that are full of life and innovation and soul.

So, in hindsight, I think this blog was too narrow and the emotion it was written in a way that lends itself to a fight rather than a discussion. And for that I am sorry.

What I do stand by after the years that have passed since I wrote this blog is that there is too much fear in the world and we ought to create and behave from a place of passion, belief, and love rather than truing to homogenize, pander, and cater with our art. But while I enjoy making art with an edge that speaks against the things that ought to be spoken against and for the things that ought to be spoken for, I also want my art to be more like a symphony than a football game.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-competition. Competition can be good fun and even helpful at times. But here’s something that we sometimes don’t think about… Competition is not as effective in nature or in human history as cooperation is.

Human beings didn’t evolve to the top of the food chain because we are the biggest, strongest or fastest. If competition were the highest rule of the universe, then wouldn’t you expect some sort of giant shark-dragon-monster at the top of the food chain that just easily defeats all of its prey with its venomous fire balls or something? Instead, you have these relatively small, slow, and fragile creatures called human beings who can’t even survive a winter without fire, clothing and shelter. Sure we can use our opposable thumbs to make weapons, but that’s not really what has made humanity thrive. It is our developed ability to empathize, communicate, and cooperate with one another.

And this is not just about humans. If you look at nature, there is love and cooperation everywhere. Ants building cities together, whales forming families and clans that spend their whole lives together, parents sacrificing their own lives for their offspring, cells working together to keep life going… Cooperation towards a greater good can be found everywhere we look. In some ways, the most “fit” are not the biggest, strongest and fastest but the the most empathetic and cooperative.

So why don’t we as a society value cooperation as highly as competition? Why must there be a loser for us to be interested? Why is the most boring part of American idol when all of the singers sing together?

Because we want blood!

The result of this type of thinking are a world full of ‘us vs them’. A world plagued with things like concentration camps and bad religion and Roman arena games where thousands are slaughtered for the public’s amusement. But is this really the kind of world we want to build?

Tribal, competitive thinking allowed for societies to develop certain helpful things through history. But when these tribes start getting nuclear bombs, the world is in trouble. I think we are at an important juncture of our development as a species. We either will learn to cooperate and empathize with the “other” or we will continue to try to conquer them. And if it’s the latter, we are all in trouble.

You see this on a global scale, but you also see it down to a personal scale. Down to a, “what should I post on my twitter feed?” scale. The world we live in is built of small decisions. So what kind of world do we want to build?

I, for one, don’t want anything to do with drawing more lines in the sand between people. I’d rather be a part of trying to erase them.

At this point in my life, I have no desire to bash Christian music or anybody’s music really. But I do still think we ought to be wary of the fear and b.s. that plagues not just the religious world but our world as a whole. My conclusion about the matter is this: spend your energy on things you believe in, and do them honestly and to the best of your ability.

You know, one thing that’s really interesting about people and bands who end up becoming legends, is that for most of them when they first released their songs that would become classics later on, those same songs were not popular when they were first released. Its like they had to work in the shadows for a long time, and it took the culture and marketplace 15 years to catch on to them. This was the case with Bob Marley. The songs we love most by Marley were not popular when he first released them.

Its for this reason that as a little hobby, I like to find undiscovered up-and-coming artists who I think have the ability to become really big, but discover them before everyone else does. One of the first people I thought this of was Phil Wickham. After seeing him perform live like 5 years ago I was blown away at his talent, and surprised that more people have not heard his music or seen him live. The second person I’m thinking this of now is Daniel Bastha. A worship leader based in Atlanta, GA who is signed to Integrity Music, Bashta has released 2 albums on Integrity to date, with his latest album, THE INVISIBLE, released only a few months ago in February 2013.

I’ve been listening to The Invisible on repeat since I got it a few months ago, and to say that I’m impressed is a massive understatement. This guy is something else man. Out of the 10 tracks on the album, every song is a stand out, with 4 that tower above the rest in my opinion. My favorite track is Great Is The Lord, and my second favorite track is Praise The Invisible, then the other 2 is I Want It All and Behold The Lamb.

I’m telling you, if you get a chance to grab this album, you won’t be sorry, and you’ll be surprised that he could’ve been flying under the radar for as long as he has. I honestly think Daniel has the potential to be the next Chris Tomlin.